Perez finished in sixth place having led the race at one stage. “Today we got a very positive result for the team, especially considering where we started the afternoon,” he said.

“When you start in 16th it is always going to be difficult to make up ground, but I had a very strong start and made up a good few positions. It was especially important to pass Jenson [Button] because he was on a similar strategy to mine – it was a key moment for my race.”

Perez praised his team’s strategy of using the soft tyres for the first two stints before switching to the super-softs. “We showed once more that we can manage the tyres well, and we had a very strong race pace, as we have had all year,” he said.

“It was nice to be in the lead for a while, although we obviously knew that the cars behind us were on a different strategy.

“The only regret is that without the grid penalty I would have been further up the grid, which would have made a big difference because we had the pace to fight for a podium today. It’s nice to be back in the points after two disappointing races: the car is improving and we are in good shape.”

It’s sad that the current rules make it pretty much impossible for any car that made it into Q3 to use the harder tyre for their first stint. Perez is ‘lucky” that he doesn’t make it into Q3 and then can choose this strategy.

Although he also has the car to pull this off. The Ferrari and Williams are a bit harder on their tyres.

Still what is the point of having two compounds if the top 10 drivers have no option but to all use the same strategy?

The more I see of Sergio this year the more I don’t understand why Mclaren dropped him for Magnussen. Nothing against Kevin but given his season so far I would have put him in a lower team and had two more experienced drivers in the Mclaren seats.
This also reflects well on Kamui. Kamui was faster than Perez just like the Hulk but Sergio has the edge in the race because of his tyre management.